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Suffolk Law School is committed to providing a diverse
student body with the opportunity to study law. That commitment has yielded some
of the nation’s most distinguished legal professionals. Learn how a stranger’s
favor more than 100 years ago planted the seed that became one of the largest
law schools in the country.
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Learn more about the Suffolk Law application process. Still
on the fence? Come take a tour. We’ve also got answers to all of your financial
aid questions—there are many resources available to help offset the cost of law
school.
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With three degree programs, several joint degree options, 18
areas of focus, and six concentrations, you can find the course of study meant
for you. Complement your courses by working in one of our dozen clinics,
joining a moot court or mock trial team, or studying abroad.
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Our students make Sargent Hall hum with activity from
morning ‘til midnight. With more than four dozen students groups representing a
wide range of cultures, legal areas, sports, religions, and other interests,
there’s a group for you at Suffolk Law.
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Suffolk Law is committed to creating practice-ready lawyers,
equipped with the skills and competencies to succeed in a shifting cultural and
technological landscape. Our Office of Professional and Career Development is a
resource for students, alumni, and employers alike.
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Our faculty include top scholars in the field, practitioners-in-residence, and current and former litigators and judicial officers. We also regularly host distinguished visiting faculty from notable institutions across the country.

The John Joseph Moakley Law Library boasts more than 350,000
volumes, dozens of computer stations and group study rooms, access to dozens of
online research databases, and other resources to help you succeed in the
classroom.
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From mentoring students to offering financial support, from
our online community to our alumni magazine, there are several ways for Suffolk
Law’s more than 23,000 alumni to stay connected to each other and to the
University.
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What happens when a massive corporation decides to profit unfairly from the intellectual property of a small business or entrepreneur –or to enforce its own trademark to a point that it becomes a trademark bully?

“Well, usually, nothing happens,” says Eve Brown, practitioner in residence and director of Suffolk Law’s Intellectual Property and Entrepreneurship Clinic. “The expense of taking on a large corporation in federal court dissuades most individual entrepreneurs and inventors from taking any legal action.”

That’s where the IP Clinic comes in. It charges no fees to provide a team of students who work with Brown and faculty advisors to mount vigorous defense and prosecution of IP cases they think are especially strong.

One such case, a David and Goliath tale by Brown’s telling, starts in 2011, when Winthrop, Mass.-based artist Maureen Reddy designed a light shade that transforms ’70s-style bathroom vanity light bars—the ones with four bare bulbs—into something more chic. The shade uses only a screwdriver for installation.

In 2012, Reddy, pitched the idea to Lowe’s Home Improvement, with her product patent pending and a business and marketing plan ready. Despite her pending patent, she alleges that Lowe’s began producing and selling a strikingly similar version of her shade through a Florida-based company, Evolution Lighting, LLC. In the past year, she found Evolution's product on Lowe’s website, in Lowe's stores, and on various third-party sites, including Amazon.

Reddy turned to the IP Clinic to represent her in a patent infringement and unfair competition case against both companies. Without the clinic’s help it would have been difficult or impossible for Reddy to prosecute her claim, Brown said.

Two years later, the case is now in front of the Hon. William Young of the U.S. District Court in Boston. At Brown’s request, Christina Mott JD ’14 was granted permission to represent Reddy in court. The recent graduate has been performing behind-the-scenes research and preparation throughout the 2013-2014 academic year.

Mott and Reddy achieved a victory on June 4 during a pre-trial hearing in federal court, where Mott successfully convinced the court to adopt the clinic’s claim construction in the patent infringement case. This win is excellent news for Reddy, since the claim construction defines the scope of the patent and, in many cases, can greatly influence the ultimate outcome of the case.

By avoiding a narrow interpretation of Reddy's patent, Mott and the clinic increased the chance that all three of the shades that defendants sold could be found by a jury to have infringed Reddy's patent.

Mott calls Reddy’s situation “a poster case” for encroachment of intellectual property. “She is an inventor who’s passionate about her product and tried to follow the right steps to get her invention to the market, when something went wrong,” Mott said.